1. Technical Field
The invention is related to media stream identification and segmentation, and in particular, to a system and method for providing both automatic and real-time user control over repeating audio and/or video objects identified within one or more streams of media such as, for example, a media stream broadcast by a radio or television station.
2. Related Art
There are many existing schemes for identifying audio and/or video objects such as particular advertisements, station jingles, or songs embedded in an audio stream, or advertisements or other videos embedded in a video stream. For example, with respect to audio identification, many such schemes are referred to as “audio fingerprinting” schemes. Typically, audio fingerprinting schemes take a known object, and reduce that object to a set of parameters, such as, for example, frequency content, energy level, etc. These parameters are then stored in a database of known objects. Sampled portions of the streaming media are then compared to the fingerprints in the database for identification purposes.
Thus, in general, such schemes typically rely on a comparison of the media stream to a large database of previously identified media objects. In operation, such schemes often sample the media stream over a desired period using some sort of sliding window arrangement, and compare the sampled data to the database in order to identify potential matches. In this manner, individual objects in the media stream can be identified. This identification information is typically used for any of a number of purposes, including segmentation of the media stream into discrete objects, or generation of play lists or the like for cataloging the media stream.
However, as noted above, such schemes require the use of a preexisting database of pre-identified media objects for operation. Without such a preexisting database, identification, and/or segmentation of the media stream are not possible when using the aforementioned conventional schemes.
Further, user interaction with such media streams is limited by the ability to quickly identify both repeating objects and the start and end points of such repeating objects with the media stream.
Therefore, what is needed is a system and method for efficiently identifying and extracting or segmenting repeating media objects from a media stream such as a broadcast radio or television signal without the need to use a preexisting database of pre-identified media objects. Further, once the repeating media objects have been identified, an intelligent user interface for providing user interaction with the media stream is needed for allowing a user to control handling or processing of the media stream upon subsequent occurrences of particular repeating objects.